5 Music Games to Play with Flashcards

Flashcards are a great tool to have in your music room. I frequently use both rhythm and melody flashcards with my students,  but simply reading and playing flashcards can get boring after about the first 5 minutes.
To spice it up, I like to play flashcard games. These are a HIT with my students and I am sure they will be with yours too. These games work both with melody and rhythm flashcards. And when you use grade-appropriate flashcards I have played these games with students all the way from grade 1 to grade 8.

If you need music flash cards I have rhythm and melody ones that are color-coded by level in my TPT store! 

Click here to buy rhythm flashcards 
Click here to buy solfege flashcards   

Be the Detective 

• For this game, I put 3-5 flashcards on the board 
• I perform 1 of the flashcards 
• Then using their fingers students show the number of the flashcard I performed.
• After we have played the game a few times I will have students perform the patterns or play the patterns on instruments 
• This game is great for a quick assessment check-in

Poison 

• Choose our melody or rhythm pattern that is poison
• When we first start playing the game I write the poison pattern on the board. With older students or students who have played this game a lot I don’t write the poison pattern on the board 
• Clap/sing/play various patterns for the students to copy. The students need to copy all of the patterns, except the poison pattern 
• If a student echoes the poison pattern they are out 
• Sometimes I find it hard to tell who echoed the poison pattern so some alternatives are that the whole class is out or we will see how many rounds we can go without someone echoing the poison pattern.

Find you Match

• For this game, you need flashcards that have 2 ways to represent the same thing. 
• I often use solfege flash cards because you can represent the pattern with the staff notation of the staff and with letters. However, you could use treble clef cards, rhythm cards, and dynamics if you have a smaller class. 
• Each student gets a flash card 
• Half of the students have cards with solfege staff notation and the other half have solfege patterns written in letters. 
• Make sure you check before to make sure every card has a pair 
• Then I send students free to find their match, once they find their match they sit down with their partner 
• Once we have played the game a few times I set a time limit for students to find their match. You can use just a timer, or have the find their match in the time it takes you to sing a song they’re working on 
• I have also kept track of how fast classes complete the activities to create a mini-competition between classes 

Musical Flash Cards

• This is played similarly to music chairs
• While music is playing students walk around the room, when the music stops they pick up the flash card closest to them and hold it 
• I then choose 3 students to read the pattern of the flashcard. I use this opportunity to assess students’ ability to read and perform the rhythm of melody patterns. 
• The first few times we play the game I make sure that there are enough cards for each student
• Once we have played the game a few times I start taking cards away, so there aren’t enough cards for each student
• The students who don’t have a card are then out. 
• With older students, you can also play that if they are called on to read a pattern and read it incorrectly they are also out.

Heads Up, Seven Up 
This game was a classic when I was in elementary school and many students already know the basics of how to play 

• If you haven’t played before here’s the jist. 7 students are chosen to come to the front of the classroom, they’re the choosers 
• All of the other students sit with heads down 
• While music played the 7 students, choose a student by tapping them on their head 
• When the music stops, it’s heads up 7 up and the students who were chosen stand 
• Here’s where the music version changes. 
• The students who were the choosers are given a flashcard 
• The students who were chosen read the pattern on the flashcard to say who they thought picked them 

For example: Raeya thinks Ember picked her. Ember is holding the SMSM card. When it is Raeya turn to guess who picked her she would say, “SMSM” rather than calling Ember by name 

• It is important that the chooser doesn’t reveal who they picked until everyone has guessed! 
• This game is a little easier to play with older students because they will be better able to understand the game itself.

So there you have it! Five easy, peasy ready-to-teach games to go with flashcards. 

If you want to test these out, but don’t have flash cards. I have you covered, with the flash cards I have to sale in my TPT store! Both the melody and rhythm flashcards are color coded, making it easy to organize if you purchase multiple sets!

Buy flashcards here! 

Enjoy! 
Jayna